Primary experiences and discontinuities of remembrance: notes from a text by Reinhart Koselleck

Résumé

This article takes as its starting point a text by
Reinhart Koselleck on the theme of memory,
which analyzes supposed discontinuities between
primary experiences and secondary forms of
remembrance. Although this is a specific text and
we do not intend to see its statements as
foundations of a supposed author’s thought as a
whole, we point out some potential relations with
theses found in his other works. Then, some of his
formulations are brought to a rather strictly
epistemological level and compared to theses by
authors such as Aleida Assmann, Joël Candau,
Hannah Arendt, and Paul Ricoeur. The goal, in this
case, is just mapping some problems regarded as
relevant when dealing with the relations between
history, memory, truth, and justice, without any
ambition of solving them.
Keywords: Koselleck, Reinhart; Memory;
Experience.